Effect of consecutive alternating administration (CAA) of a triple anti-enteroviral combination on Coxsackievirus B1 neuroinfection in mice

•A new antiviral course of consecutive alternating administration of the combination pleconaril/guanidine/oxoglaucine was done.•This course, consecutive alternating administration (CAA), showed a marked antiviral effect in CVB1 infected mice.•Monotherapy with pleconaril manifested an antiviral activity accompanied by some toxicity in mice, but toxicity was lacking during the CAA course.•CAA course of the triple combination prevented the development of the drug-resistance in Coxsackievirus B1 infected mice. Currently, clinically effective antivirals for use in the treatment of enteroviral (EV) infections do not exist. The main reason is the development of drug resistance, the principle obstacle in the development of EV infection chemotherapy, based til now on monotherapy. The most important achievement of our previous studies was the development of a novel scheme for in vivo application of a triple combination of EV inhibitors with different modes of action against Coxsackievirus B (CVB) infections in mice. It consists of consecutive alternating administration (CAA) of the substances in the combination. Here, we tested the effect of the triple combination pleconaril, guanidine-HCl, and oxoglaucine (PGO) via CAA in newborn mice infected with a neurotropic strain of CVB1 (20 LD50 per mouse). This combination manifested a considerable protective effect with pleconaril doses of 25–200mg/kg: it decreased mortality rate (protection index, PI, between 31.3% and 67.7%) and increased mean survival time (MST) by 4–6days. Pleconaril monotherapy demonstrated activity similar to that of PGO via CAA, as measured by PI values, but MST values were slightly lower. However, it also greatly suppressed growth of infected suckling mice, especially at 200mg/kg. This toxic effect was avoided with CAA of PGO at pleconaril doses of 25–100mg/kg. Pleconaril monotherapy administered every 3days was ineffective. The PGO with CAA treatment course decreased infectious virus content, whereas pleconaril monotherapy did not. Analysis of drug-sensitivity in brain samples from CVB1 infected mice, based on IC50 (50% inhibitory concentration) values from cell culture experiments, showed that the CAA course counteracted the development of drug resistance to pleconaril and oxoglaucine in the triple PGO combination and increased drug sensitivity. In contrast, pleconaril and oxoglaucine monotherapies resulted in drug resistance. This data clearly proves the effectiveness of the proposed novel appro